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Category Archives: Portraits

I am currently working on some new portfolio images and was working with Marc Lucero [website], a comedian who lives in my neighborhood.

Our plan is to put together a diverse set of images, which will include both digital and film, and mainly on location. For this part of the portfolio build we worked in a private function room making use of the invisible black backdrop [tutorial] as well as some of the furniture available there, already.

The lighting which was used was one light, Alien Bee, with different modifiers – octabank, shoot through umbrella or grid. All pictures taken with my Nikon D700 and a 50mm or 135mm lens.

I look forward to adding further pictures from our shoot – as you can see I do like this black background technique. It is simple, effective, and for those who don’t know how it works it does astound them somewhat!

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Hello folks and I hope that this post finds you well on this grey and dreary day?

As some of you regular readers will know I am a big fan of 35mm film. There are loads of reasons for this, however, one of them is the imperfection, look and feel of pictures which are taken on film as well as (for me) the nostalgia!

I am currently going through my scans from the numerous rolls of film which I took with me, and I wanted to share a picture of my two sons which really stuck out the most and really says what our holiday was all about. This particular shot was taken on Rollei CR200 through an Olympus Trip 35.

This particular film is especially for cross processing your images. As you can see it has that old fashioned, classic look! I have a term with which I describe why film works – the beauty of it is in the imperfection.

I intend to share some more pictures from the holiday once they are all scanned and archived.

What are your thoughts on film? Do you think it is dead? Or do you think that there is still a place for the medium of film?

I have been making space on my hard drives and whilst looking at the pictures I took some time ago I wanted to edit them using new techniques as well as filters which I have on the new Photoshop CC. This is an image I took of Kris Sommerville which I retouched using techniques by Glyn Dewis.

The image was taken using one large softbox and making use of the inverse square law to get the background to go dark as it has. The post processing consisted of a raw conversion, sharpening as well as a different than usual black and white conversion.

I personally love this film noir style because of its striking drama. It is simple to achieve and very effective.

I based some of the post processing on the following video tutorial by Glyn Dewis

I had the pleasure of working with very talented British actor, Jason Wing not so long ago.

Jason is an actor / screenwriter from South West London. His father was Cherokee and his mother British. He trained at the Drama Centre via a Sir Anthony Hopkins scholarship. Jason has had both film and theatre roles as well as cameos in feature films. His screenwriting credits include The Ballad Of Mulla And Mullins, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010 [Jason’s website]

Jason asked me to help him refresh his actors’ portfolio and as part of his new portfolio we were going to be working mainly with 35mm film as well as some digital images.

For the digital images we used my back garden as the intention was to have pictures with a black background. The technique I used to achieve this look can be found on Glyn Dewis’ Youtube Channel by clicking here

The film shots were taken close by at Kensal Green Cemetery. I love this place – with so much history as well as parts where you can take great pictures.

For the shoot I used the following equipment –

Olympus OM2n SLR + 50mm f1.8

Nikon D3s

50mm f1.4

85mm f1.8

The film for the OM2n was Kodak Portra 400 and Kodak BW400CN. I love the Portra as so far it has behaved differently for each shoot I have used it for.

Kodak Portra 400

Kodak Portra 400

Kodak BW400CN

Kodak BW400CN

I hope you like the pictures. Please feel free to leave your comments below. Should you wish to refresh your portfolio whether with digital, or analogue pictures, get in touch for more info either via e-mail or through my website. E-mail me on todor@nw10photography.com.

Not so long ago I was asked to do a family shoot. I worked with this particular family on a number of previous occasions and wanted to do a location shoot this time as previously we worked indoors (actually that was more to do with the British weather!)

The shoot took place in Roundwood Park and I primarily worked with my Nikon D700 and 50mm lens.

Here are a few images from our session.

If you would like to book a family portrait session with me then please contact me via e-mail todor@nw10photography.com